I’ve walked through a few second hand shops this week. Today I went to a vintage market with rows upon rows of stuff. It struck me that once upon a time all of these things meant something to someone. At the very least it belonged to a person.
I observed the trinkets and T-shirts. The glass and porcelain decorative bits and bobs. The dusty books and worn furniture. The now revived popular vinyl records that once were outdated. We’ve filled the world with our stuff.
It struck me how easily something can loose value. Sentimental value is lost the moment the owner passes away. There might be a child or grandchild who holds on to that item for a while but eventually the memory fades and the sentiment dies too. Now it is just a thing. Who loved that glass owl or walked with that wooden cane?
We try so hard to cement ourselves to this world by surrounding ourselves with things that mean something to us. From the shell you picked up on some beach on some holiday to the card a friend you no longer speak to wrote you years ago. We buy things to fill our lives with meaning.
Do things give meaning to our lives or do we give meaning to things?
Sometimes if we were taught that way we take great care of our things. We fix it when it breaks. We dust and polish and clean. So many hours of our lives go into the upkeep of all the things that fill our lives. We are good stewards of all that belongs temporarily to us. But nothing is ours forever. We don’t take our trinkets with us when we die.
There was one shelf full of old photos in the shop today. Glimpses of strangers who smiled a long time ago as they played with their child or simply sat for the camera. There are no names, no way to ever know who they were. I glimpsed the love and delight on their faces as they interacted with each other or to smile at the person taking the picture.
It just made me wonder.. we spend our lives to earn money which we then spend on a lot of stuff which we then take care of. Does our stuff really leave an imprint behind of who we were? Or is the real legacy of a person found in who they loved rather than what they loved.
The real legacy of a person is not found in what they loved but who they loved.
Cadi van der Spuy
Clara Berge 